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Itinerary Help for Week in Wengen?

Hello everyone,

My husband and I will be staying in Wengen from August 11 to 17 (six nights). We are in our early-30s and looking forward to hiking in the mountains, but we have both been so busy with work that we haven't had time to thoroughly plan our itinerary.

I was hoping to get some feedback on the walks/hikes that we currently have in mind and suggestions for additions. I think what I'm struggling with is how to combine potential hikes in a way that makes logical sense for a day's activities, either multiple hikes in a day or hikes plus exploring one of the nearby towns/sights.

Rainy Day: Lauterbrunnen Valley (Lauterbrunnen - Staubbach Falls - Trummelbach Falls - Stechelberg)

Mannlichen - Royal Walk - Kleine Scheidegg - Wengernalp

North Face Trail

Schilthorn + Birg Thrill Walk

First - Bachalpsee

Murren - Gimmewald Walk

Schynige Platte to First (hardest hike we would do, if we feel up to it)

We were also thinking of taking a boat tour on Lake Brienz with a stop at Giessbach Falls on a cloudy/rainy day. We are planning to skip Jungfraujoch due to the high price. Also, if we will be traveling from Zurich to Wengen on August 11, spending August 11 to 17 in Wengen, and spending August 17 to 20 in Lucerne before returning to Zurich, does anyone have advice on which travel pass may work best? I will try to do the rough calculations once I have a better idea of our plans, but any direction would be helpful. Thank you all so much!

Posted by
301 posts

I think you have a great plan…it’s like I wrote your question … been to Wengen area six times including last two years …
get the Berner Oberland pass and half fare card…send me private message if you’d like to talk by phone and would be glad to give you all kinds of info… it’s like my second home!

Posted by
1081 posts

If you’re looking for one harder hike, either do Schynige Platte > First and skip First/Bachalpsee OR do First/Bachalpsee and pick a different harder hike. Schynige Platte to First goes right through Bachalpsee and on to First, so no reason to repeat the same hike twice :)

I’ll list an itinerary day by day but it’s obviously reliant on weather. We have a really amazing stretch of weather going on right now, so hopefully it will last for you all the way to the end of your trip! If it stays like it is forecasting there is a chance all you’ll see is sun! My husband & I spend our summers living in Mürren and sometimes take people on hikes around this area, so if you want to switch your epic hike to the Mürren area (I’d recommend) then feel free to reach out and we can take you on an epic non touristy option (I don’t share those publicly on forums like this in order to keep them non touristy)

August 11 - Arrive, settle in Wengen
August 12 - Mannlichen > Kleine Scheidegg > Wengernalp (optional detour to Fallbodensee)
August 13 - Epic hike from Mürren (weather is looking amazing for this)
August 14 - Schynige Platte Panoramaweg (Daube Oberbergorn Loucherhorn) - This is the beautiful ridge portion where you can see the lakes and mountains at the same time and is more moderate than going all the way to First
August 15 - Wengen > Lauterbrunnen > walk the valley > Stechelberg to Schilthorn > Birg Thrill Walk > Mürren > walk to Gimmelwald > cable car to Stechelberg > bus to Lauterbrunnen (option to stop at Trummelbach Falls) > Wengen
August 16 - Buffer day for the above + option for First/Bachalpsee
August 17 - Check out in Wengen > Lauterbrunnen > Interlaken > board boat with your luggage to Brienz > Train to Luzern
August 18 - Explore Luzern
August 19 - Boat Ride + Rigi
August 20 - Depart from Zurich

Your train pass will depend on your specific itinerary, so if above looks like something you like then I can help you with the calculations.

Posted by
3305 posts

Be aware that wherever you have seen that the weather is going to be amazing on Aug 13 is only making a wild guess. We do not know the weather more than 24 hours in advance here currently.

Posted by
1081 posts

Of course I’m aware that it’s not fully accurate, but I’m sure as you know we experienced weeks of poor weather and it seems to be shifting to a bout of very nice weather, so it seems reasonable to expect early next week to be fairly nice. Maybe not perfect, but nice hiking weather is reasonable to expect. Atleast much nicer than we had for all of July :)

Posted by
152 posts

We recently stayed in Wengen for a week (prior to several more days in Kandersteg area) with great - altho on warm side - weather every day end of June / early July (lucky us) .
Few ideas we did to combine hikes the few times we did this during our week in Wengen :

We took the first train available up to schynige platte from Wilderswil (from Wengen that meant we were out before 7 am I believe and sadly missed our hotels breakfast but worth it to get there first!) - hiked the panorama trail (beautiful!) that then looped back to the starting point (about 3 1/2 miles I believe) then returned to Wengen by noon, took a short break and then went up to Männlichen and hiked down a hill
around there (no set goal - just down to some cows and little lakes) and up again with the gorgeous mountain backdrop - beautiful and it was a work out!) and then back to Wengen (we returned on the gondola the way we came- all we had energy for at that point) - one of our best days.

We also went back to mannlichen one morning - hiked up to the viewpoint which had too many people for our liking - and then took the gondola to grindelwald , bought a supplement for the Eigergletscher station gondola (we had BO pass and half fare card) and hiked the Eiger trail to alpiglen - enjoyed a delicious local
Lager at the little bar/ cafe there - and then train back to grindelwald, gondola to mannlichen , gondola to Wengen. That hike was about 3.7 miles based on Strava and really enjoyable for us -
and felt a nice level of moderately challenging. We combined with an evening Wengen short hike (just followed the streets up and out of the center of town) to a beautiful spot for sunset.